In Developing countries, drinking water supply is still an open issue: in sub-Saharan Africa, coverage of improved water supply gains only the 63% (JMP, 2013). Some regions are affected by geogenic contaminants (e.g. fluorides and arsenic) and the lack of access to sanitation facilities and hygiene practices causes a high microbiological contamination of water in the supply chain. The responses to these problems are the several projects on drinking water supply that aim to improve the water availability and quality all over the world. But, how cooperation projects on water supply can be really sustainable? Can implemented technologies still work after the end of the projects? These are questions that every NGO/Association should answer during project elaboration and implementation. The main factors that can be a source of failure for water supply projects are: complexity or costs of technologies (even if implemented at domestic scale), technical management, level of acceptance by the beneficiary community (that, if does not clearly recognize the technology benefits, can make hardly sustainable the entire project) and level of support by the local and/or national Institutions. In order to gain the project sustainability, the activities should be clearly focused after a rigorous assessment in the study area regarding the local availability of human and material resources for the technology implementation, the awareness level of the community in terms of technology need and acceptance, etc. CeTAmb research center (Brescia University) has surveyed two projects on drinking water management in Senegal and Burkina Faso, which have confirmed the importance of these aspects. The sustainability level was evaluated after the project implementation: in the first case study, several deficiencies were arisen in terms of material availability and technology costs, whereas the second case study highlighted successful results in regard to water management system sustainability.
Sustainability of water supply projects: considerations from two case studies
SORLINI, SabrinaSupervision
;RONDI, Luca
Writing – Original Draft Preparation
2014-01-01
Abstract
In Developing countries, drinking water supply is still an open issue: in sub-Saharan Africa, coverage of improved water supply gains only the 63% (JMP, 2013). Some regions are affected by geogenic contaminants (e.g. fluorides and arsenic) and the lack of access to sanitation facilities and hygiene practices causes a high microbiological contamination of water in the supply chain. The responses to these problems are the several projects on drinking water supply that aim to improve the water availability and quality all over the world. But, how cooperation projects on water supply can be really sustainable? Can implemented technologies still work after the end of the projects? These are questions that every NGO/Association should answer during project elaboration and implementation. The main factors that can be a source of failure for water supply projects are: complexity or costs of technologies (even if implemented at domestic scale), technical management, level of acceptance by the beneficiary community (that, if does not clearly recognize the technology benefits, can make hardly sustainable the entire project) and level of support by the local and/or national Institutions. In order to gain the project sustainability, the activities should be clearly focused after a rigorous assessment in the study area regarding the local availability of human and material resources for the technology implementation, the awareness level of the community in terms of technology need and acceptance, etc. CeTAmb research center (Brescia University) has surveyed two projects on drinking water management in Senegal and Burkina Faso, which have confirmed the importance of these aspects. The sustainability level was evaluated after the project implementation: in the first case study, several deficiencies were arisen in terms of material availability and technology costs, whereas the second case study highlighted successful results in regard to water management system sustainability.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
